Submitted for the February 2024 prompt: On This Special Day

Mr. Toradeg was the librarian in a colony where nobody used the library. They were too busy scratching a living from barren waste even now, long decades after the colony's founding.

 

He was sensible of this, but not saddened. Rather, he gloried in the role of colony archivist, keeper of stories, guardian of the past. If nobody had time now, surely one day his life's work would be needed. He would be ready.

 

Fate arrived on an otherwise dreary Thursday wearing the unlikely aspect of Charlene Pannebaker, editor of the Daily Clarion. One of the too-frequent dust storms was blasting up a gale outside as she entered.

 

"Golly, Mr. Toradeg! It's sure blowing out, oh yah, mm-hmm!" she exclaimed, shaking herself. Charlene had been raised in Minnesota half a century before, though everyone pretended they couldn't tell.

 

"Let me take your coat," Mr. Toradeg offered, and they commenced the ritual of greeting. She gracefully twirled in the filter's air jets as he wielded a whisk broom. Then came tea, and they sat by the window, sipping and munching.

 

After a polite interval, Charlene came to the point of her visit. "We're approaching our thirty-year anniversary here on Paradise."

 

Mr. Toradeg nodded.

 

"We're planning a special issue for the paper, video presentation, images from the Foundation, that kinda thing."

 

Mr. Toradeg nodded again, sipped, and grunted.

 

"What I thought is, we add another presentation, one about Earth, dontcha know. Important things, cities and statues and, oh, I don't know."

 

Mr. Toradeg allowed as how that could be a good thing.

 

"Of course I came to you, for help putting it together," she said.

 

Mr. Toradeg stared, silent.

 

"Since you're the librarian, ya know," she added.

 

His mouth opened once, twice, but nothing came out.

 

"And you know all about that old stuff, I'm sure." It was hard going, but she pressed on.

 

Mr. Toradeg overcame his shock. "I'd be happy to help," he stammered.

 

"Oh, I just knew I could count on you!" Charlene gushed.

 

Mr. Toradeg smiled faintly. The room swam before his eyes. Finally, someone wanted his precious archives!

 

* * *

 

He got to work early the next morning. There was plenty to choose from — too much. "One minute, that's the most we can spare," she'd said. Distilling his archives into such a small window would be an heroic task.

 

But this was his big chance, the opportunity he needed to inspire people to use his library. He would be important, even if only for sixty seconds, and he would make the most of them.

 

He began by collecting sunrises, then landscapes: mountains, oceans, glaciers. He patched them together one frame at a time, then moved to the things of man.

 

He worked feverishly for three straight days, never hearing the knocking at his door. In the end exhaustion overtook him at his desk.

 

* * *

 

He was awakened by the ungentle hand of Charlene Pannebaker. "Mr. Toradeg!"

 

"What—?"

 

"I had to break in. The presses are waiting! Have you finished?"

 

"Oh, I just... Is it morning?"

 

"Tomorrow's our Foundation Celebration, Mr. Toradeg! We need that video!" Her habitual politeness, usually so impervious, had frayed into wide-eyed desperation.

 

"I've just finished," he said hastily. "There was no time to polish—"

 

"I'm sure it'll be fine!" Charlene enthused, snatching the data cube from his hand. At the door she turned back. "You be sure to come over tonight at seven, now!"

 

Mr. Toradeg hadn't had a chance to view his finished work. He hoped it would do.

 

* * *

 

He arrived early, ducking in ahead of another blistering dust storm. The front hall was crowded with colonists, from farmers to engineers. To one side was a platform for dignitaries, and he was shocked to find himself ushered there.

 

The crowd settled and the Mayor gave a speech invoking the virtues of perseverance, thoroughness, and hard work. Then the presentation began. Mr. Toradeg hadn't the slightest idea this would happen, thinking it would be a small gathering. He sat watching the show, praying he wouldn't have to give a speech.

 

Clips played from the colony's founding: the landing ships, the first dome, terraforming engines, all with live narration. At the end the crowd rose spontaneously in standing ovation. They were applauding themselves and all they'd achieved, Mr. Toradeg sensed. That was the moment the librarian finally realized the great distance between himself and the other colonists: they had built something, while he had merely existed. Tears rose in his eyes and his head bowed with shame.

 

Charlene Pannebaker stood. "And now our final piece, a retrospective of Earth from our librarian, Mr. Toradeg."

 

Music swelled: The Green Hills of Earth. His video played.

 

First came sunrise, glorious over a sandy beach, then another landscape and yet another, faster and faster until they blurred together, the only constant, the rising sun. Then came rapid shots of cityscapes, ports and ships and trains, the Statue of Liberty, l'Arc de Triomphe, China's Great Wall, pyramids at Giza and Chichén Itzá, Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon, the Taj Mahal and Rome and Neuschwanstein, Djenné and Marrakech, the veldt and Victoria falls, Everest and the Sahara. Each image had only a second. It was enough.

 

Then came blurred sunsets, fading back into moonrise over that first beach. Night climaxed into a thunderstorm, then raindrops at dawn, and a closeup of a songbird on a leafy branch.

 

The film faded with the music. From the crowd came a faint sob, someone weeping. Then rose a keening wail and all the sounds of terrible, hopeless grief.

 

Mr. Toradeg had succeeded beyond his wildest hopes, capturing the essence of a beautiful Earth, a paradise now and forever out of reach. He had shown them a glimpse of heaven but returned them to hell.

 

The people rose, one and two at a time, and slowly filed out into the howling wind.